Nonviolent Peaceforce Europe
Summary Office Report 2004.
Brussels, 29 March 2005
By Rachel Julian
Activities
Many of the activities from the Brussels office in the last year have focused on building contacts and fundraising for the Sri Lanka project. We have worked with many European MOs to apply for funding and tried to create professional documents and presentations to use to promote the peaceforce. The office in Brussels has grown and taken on more responsibility within Nonviolent Peaceforce (e.g. paying SL staff, finances and fundraising coordination).
Our fundraising work has included:
Research on governments and governmental strategies, EU budget lines and Foundations
Applications for the Sri Lanka project sent to German Federal Foreign Ministry (successful ¤133.933 in 2004), CORDAID (successful ¤247.000 over three years), Ireland Aid (not successful), Minbuza (Netherlands Foreign Ministry) together with NEAG (not successful), Norwegian government with Norwegian Peace Association (not successful), several Catalonian local authorities (successful) and Fonds Catalonia (still waiting) ,with NOVA.
With Matteo (CSDC) we are working on a possible joint fundraising activity.
We initiated the EU consortium for two proposals under the EU Socrates-Grundtvig programme on common Training-related activities in Europe.
Communication has also been important to develop this year. Although there is certainly more that needs to be done, we have got a newsletter going, which has both Nonviolent Peaceforce news and MO news and is written thanks to Europe office interns. The website is gradually becoming useful (see notes from Rachel) and we have an email list that we can manage more easily (npeurope@npogroups.org). The Sri Lanka project has managed to produce some public reports which are very useful.
A volunteer has been working to help develop a communication strategy (outreach) for the office, which so far has concentrated on getting the website up to an acceptable standard.
The work with MOs has involved some fundraising focused work, visits to MAN, Nonviolent Peaceforce Germany, NOVA, and Peaceworkers UK.
As Regional Coordinator I have tried to make sure your concerns and interests are represented in staff committees and activities. I worked to keep a representative of the regional coordinators on the new senior management team of Nonviolent Peaceforce and I attend the monthly meetings of regional coordinators where we discuss issues of Nonviolent Peaceforce’s responsibility and agreements with MOs, and other regional development projects.
We started planning the Europe region Annual meeting 2005 in autumn 2004 and asked for the contributions from MOs.
Some of the contacts and relationships we’ve built (see Alessandro’s report for EU and EPLO)
CIDSE (European network of catholic development agencies), Foundation for Coexistence, Swedish Peace Team Forum, PBI International and European office, SCI Belgian section, MIR-IFOR Belgian section, Comité Catholique contre la Faim et le Developpement, Gernika peace centre, IFOR women peacebuilders programme and many others (database of key contacts of around 200 people now held in Brussels).
Finances.
The core office and regional costs are still mainly funded by Nonviolent Peaceforce USA. The Brussels office raised two major grants for the Sri Lanka project (German Federal Foreign Ministry and CORDAID), plus NOVA’s work with local authorities raised about ¤7000 for the Sri Lanka project.
The accountant still has the end of year accounts to complete, but the Brussels office handled about ¤210.000 in 2004, of which 63% was spent directly on the Sri Lanka project.
Staffing
The office has consisted of two permanent staff, one part time administrative post and three interns over the last year.
Rachel Julian – European Coordinator
Alessandro Rossi – Development Officer
Sylvia Franssen –Finance Administrator (1 day week)
Laura Salich (finished), Ben Reichart (still on board) and Silvia Pina (finished) – interns.
Main Achievements
A European newsletter was started and circulated, as well as punctual info distribution through email.
Common activities among european Mos increased (funding proposals, discussions).
Joint activities NP office-national Mos increased (especially in D, F, IT, UK, SP, NL, N).
Increased contribution from Europe to the funding for the Sri Lanka project.
Not achieved
The European Fundraising Working Group didn’t really function, although we did pull together some MOs to work on the EU funding proposals for training.
Contact group idea from last year. It didn’t work in all countries at first, so the new email list was set up.
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